


A non-obsessive fixation

by melonbutterfly



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Body Part Kinks, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-27
Updated: 2011-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, Rodney might possibly have a thing for John's waist. And his belly. And the small of his back – generally the area below his chest and above his hips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A non-obsessive fixation

So, Rodney might possibly have a thing for John's waist. And his belly. And the small of his back – generally the area below his chest and above his hips.

It's an odd place to be fixated on – it's not even really a body part; it's sort of a blank space where body parts are concerned. There's the waist but there's also belly and back, and there's the way John's black, too-tight t-shirts cling to the whole area, making creases that Rodney desperately wants to smooth down just to feel the soft cloth slide over John's warm skin. There's how John slouches, sort of pushing his hips out or to the side but inadvertently making the whole area above them curve even more interestingly. There's the way nobody really seems to notice how sexy that part of John's body is, gazes gliding unseeing from shoulders down to hips and everything above and beyond, not really sticking in between.

At night, when their bodies have cooled down and they're on the brink of falling asleep, curled up naked and just breathing, Rodney slowly slides down John's body until he can press his face to John's belly, his waist, sometimes the small of his back, depending on how he's lying. If John is awake enough to put his hand on Rodney's head, he'll rasp his stubble over John's skin, deeply grateful John isn't at all ticklish, and if John isn't, Rodney will just press his mouth to warm skin and breathe. The next day, he'll look at John, all slinky and accidentally graceful, and think _I was there._ Under that t-shirt under that jacket, Rodney's mouth and face were, and somehow that means more to him than the fact that Rodney's mouth was on a great many other places on John's body too.

Part of it, certainly, is the fact that his waist and the small of John's back are the only areas Rodney is allowed to touch in public – in a couple-y way, that is; shoulder clasps and all that are perfectly fine too. But Rodney isn't allowed to playfully swat John's ass, the way some of John's friends are allowed to, and anything involving faces – kissing, touching there, even the Athosian forehead-leaning – is a complete taboo. Holding hands is also on the No Go list, and sometimes when Rodney leans in too close or gets a little creative with the public touching, John will tense up too.

But Rodney is always allowed to put a hand on the small of John's back, and he's allowed to brush his knuckles over John's belly, and he's allowed to cup John's waist as long as he doesn't pull John close and doesn't do it for long in a way that would be less "reaffirming couple-touch" and more "holding your boyfriend in public". Rodney had been enamored with that area long before they could and would touch in public, much less be open about their relationship, though, so that's not all of it.

Rodney is okay with the boundaries John sets – well, he's okay with it now that John gave him a clear list of what is allowed and what isn't; he had hated the guessing game of before, when John would tense up under his hand and his smile for Rodney would turn bland. And, okay, it had been less John giving him a list than John nodding or shaking his head while Rodney asked detailed questions, but that doesn't matter; the outcome is the same. Rodney now has clear guidelines he can abide to, and if he forgets or just doesn't, he has nobody to blame but himself.

It's no hardship, and it doesn't make Rodney unhappy to not be allowed to be really demonstrative with John in public (unless under extreme circumstances, but those count in an entirely different way and are thus not relevant for this line of thought). In a way, it actually makes things easier, because in previous relationships Rodney had never really known what he was allowed to do in public and what not, what was expected from him to do from everybody else, and what his partner expected from him, and how all these rules changed depending where in public they were and in what context – it's way too unreliable and inconsistent, and Rodney is too impatient to really care. But John's rules are clear, and he likes them for it.

Sometimes, when John is slouching against some wall and talking to people (it looks like flirting, but it's really not; John is genuinely not aware what it looks like to everybody else), Rodney will pause mid-step and just stare. Once or twice, he had gotten an amused smile for being so obvious, and once Radek had made a quip that Rodney hadn't understood until hours later: apparently, from the outside it looks like he's actually staring at John's crotch or ass, which, well. He isn't, but he couldn't care less about what people think.

John seems mostly amused with the whole thing; anyway, it's not like Rodney spends his whole time worshiping the area of John's waist when there were so many other lovely parts of John's body that need worshiping, but. He does end up touching there regularly, not really more often than other parts of John's body – in total, he touches John's hands the most, with his own hands and mouth; John has great hands, big and capable, expert at handling many things from weapons to Rodney and weirdly elegant like the rest of him – but because it's such an unusual area of the body in that it generally doesn't get much attention, John notices especially when Rodney touches him there. At the beginning of their relationship, not so much, but as they both got bolder and Rodney dared more and more often to not just put his hands there, but his face, John had taken notice. By now he's at the point where Rodney can walk up to John and put both hands on his waist (or above his hips, where John often gets cold and doesn't even notice) and it's intimate and John will relax into him, as if Rodney had touched his flaccid cock without the intent to arouse (that's something John likes to do with Rodney).

There's a part of John, of that Rodney is sure, that actually likes it a lot – John has a thing for being held, which might be one of the reasons he doesn't want it in public, not that it matters. At first Rodney had thought John was a cuddler – and by that point he had, thankfully, already learned that bantering was not the way to get John to relax when he was feeling vulnerable – which had been sort of cute, but after a while he had figured out that it was more than that. In bed, John will roll half on top of Rodney and wriggle until Rodney clamps his arms around him just to hold him still, and then he'll relax and drop off so quickly Rodney had thought he was faking the first couple of times it had happened. When they're sitting, John will either plaster himself so close to Rodney's side Rodney will end up wrapping his arm around his shoulders out of sheer self-defense, or, if that's not possible, John sometimes actually climbs into Rodney's lap. He'll pretend it's for kissing or mutual orgasms or both, but Rodney isn't stupid. Sometimes, Rodney will give him excuses by talking about feelings so John will turn his back on him (John has this weird thing where he really, really can't look a person in the eye who is talking about emotions) and then push his back against Rodney until Rodney spoons him, because, weird hang-ups aside, John isn't actually insensitive. He's just a little skittish, and sometimes Rodney amuses himself playing mind-games with himself about John being a cat and Rodney being the person trying to coax him into relaxing.

So, Rodney has a weird thing where he really likes to touch John's waist (or belly or the small of his back), but that's okay, because John has a thing where he likes to be held, and both are easy to combine. Rodney figures they both got pretty lucky, all things considered.


End file.
